NBA Playoffs 2012

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41

[quote]sam_sneed wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
The ONLY team in the league that has even a remote chance of stopping San Antone is OKC. But, I just don’t think they’re good enough yet. Also, there is nothing boring about the way the Spurs play. Yeah, they’re not getting halfcourt lobs or running their globetrotter starter kits, but their chemistry is insane. They play as crisp a basketball game as I’ve ever seen. They’re like the old dudes at the Y that have been playing together forever and run the courts against kids 1/2 their age and twice as athletic.[/quote]

They’ll be easier to watch against OKC. It’s not only that I don’t find their style of play exciting, it’s also because every time I tune in they’re up by 10 or more. Combine the 2 and I just tune out. I don’t like OKC or the Lakers, but their games have been way more exciting to watch than any of the Spurs series. West coast games suck too when you have to be up at 6am.

I like your analogy. I used to play in a Y league years ago when I was a lot younger. This old, out of shape looking team that was sponsored by an Irish pub used to take the championship every year I played verse a bunch of younger, faster teams.[/quote]

Yeah, I’m central time so 7:30 games in LA start at 9:30 here. Being at work at 6:30 most days made it a l’il rough, but I usually toughed it out haha. At least now with SA/OKC goin’ we’re on the same schedule.

Also, was the Irish pub team fat white dudes? That would make the story 10x cooler.

42

[quote]strungoutboy21 wrote:

[quote]scj119 wrote:
I didn’t watch as much of the LAL series as I’d like (west conf games are on late here), but until a SINGLE non-Lakers fan says the calls were predominately in OKC’s favor, I’m not gonna believe it.

I generally don’t believe any argument when the only people in favor are fans of the team of question. You’ll be right more often than not. Especially because WF has at least mentioned the “tilted” officiating in literally every Lakers game that he’s watched and discussed in this thread. (Not saying he blames losses on them, but there is always SOME mention of skewed officiating somewhere in each post) [/quote]
Of course they were going to say the calls were bullshit because they are Lakers fans. What were the Lakers fans saying in 2002 in game six against the Kings?[/quote]

or perhaps in '99 game 7 against blazers lol. you know gasol kinda remimds me of a skinny sabonis with better knees

43

Ialso agree that the refs handed that series to the Lakers… Sucks to be a Kings fan lol.

Like I said before, I don’t blame the Refs for the Lakers losing the series but they definitely helped OKC out down the stretch in a couple of those games, especially game 4 with the huge 4th quarter free throw shooting disparity that basically ended the series (3-1 going back to OKC instead of 2-2)

44

someone needs to tell stern that the league being successful is not 100% about dollars being made.

and when it comes to officiating, less is more.

45

[quote]sam_sneed wrote:

[quote]gregron wrote:

[quote]sam_sneed wrote:

[quote]js252 wrote:
anybody really think okc or anyone else can take the spurs though?[/quote]

I do. OKC will be the West Coast champions as I predicted earlier in the last thread before the playoffs started.[/quote]

OKC is going to get dismantled by the Spurs. The Spurs are just playing way too good right now, no one can hang with them. OKC has had to come back from pretty serious deficits in 5 of their 8 playoff wins… They won’t be doing that against San Antonio.[/quote]

It’s true the Spurs are steamrolling through the Playoffs with the momentum they had at the end of the season, but I’m not impressed with the teams they had to beat in the Playoffs. Utah and a less than 100% Clipper team. I think OKC got this.

How many games you think it’ll take the Spurs to take it?

Disclaimer: I couldn’t watch any Spurs games these playoffs because they’re too damn boring. I tried, just couldn’t keep from switching the channel.
[/quote]

I agree that SA’s opponents haven’t been that great but to win a ton of games in a row to end the season and then go 8 for 8 in the playoffs so far… That’s impressive. By the time they play the first game against OKC they will have played 8 games and had 22 days off. They will be fresh and that is something that the young guns in Oklahoma don’t want.

I think OKC will win a couple games but that San Antonio closes it out in 6. (I wouldn’t at all be surprised though if SA sweeps it in 4) they have just played incredibly consistent and like I said, OKC has had to come back from pretty significant deficits in over half of their playoff wins this year. I don’t see they erasing deficits like that against the Spurs. They’re just playing incredible team basketball right now.

46

[quote]Aggv wrote:
someone needs to tell stern that the league being successful is not 100% about dollars being made.

and when it comes to officiating, less is more. [/quote]

I want to tattoo the messgae of this backwards on his forehead so every time he looks in the mirror he’s forced to read this.

47

[quote]Aggv wrote:
someone needs to tell stern that the league being successful is not 100% about dollars being made.
[/quote]

It is the Stern. He is running a billion dollar business. To us it’s a sport, a game and entertainment… To the NBA it is 100% a business and businesses are all about making as much money as possible. I don’t like it as much as the next guy but if I owned a team I would be trying to make as much money as possible.

48

[quote]gregron wrote:

[quote]Aggv wrote:
someone needs to tell stern that the league being successful is not 100% about dollars being made.
[/quote]

It is the Stern. He is running a billion dollar business. To us it’s a sport, a game and entertainment… To the NBA it is 100% a business and businesses are all about making as much money as possible. I don’t like it as much as the next guy but if I owned a team I would be trying to make as much money as possible.[/quote]

Buying a pro sports team with the idea that you’re going to make money on it is flawed logic imho. Not saying they need to be losing money, or breaking even, but the goal for ANY team ownership should be to WIN. If all they cared about was making money, there are much much better investments elsewhere outside of pro sports.

Winning will always yield the biggest return (profits) when it comes to pro sports, and should always be the main focus.

49

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]Aggv wrote:
someone needs to tell stern that the league being successful is not 100% about dollars being made.

and when it comes to officiating, less is more. [/quote]

I want to tattoo the messgae of this backwards on his forehead so every time he looks in the mirror he’s forced to read this.[/quote]

I don’t give that much of a shit if officiating is loosely called or strictly enforced. I just wish that they would decide on ONE way of calling it and be consistent in every minute of every game, playoff or non playoff.

Obviously though, pretty much every sport calls it more loosely in the playoffs, so it’s not that practical. You could make it closer to consistent though.

50

[quote]Aggv wrote:

[quote]gregron wrote:

[quote]Aggv wrote:
someone needs to tell stern that the league being successful is not 100% about dollars being made.
[/quote]

It is the Stern. He is running a billion dollar business. To us it’s a sport, a game and entertainment… To the NBA it is 100% a business and businesses are all about making as much money as possible. I don’t like it as much as the next guy but if I owned a team I would be trying to make as much money as possible.[/quote]

Buying a pro sports team with the idea that you’re going to make money on it is flawed logic imho. Not saying they need to be losing money, or breaking even, but the goal for ANY team ownership should be to WIN. If all they cared about was making money, there are much much better investments elsewhere outside of pro sports.

Winning will always yield the biggest return (profits) when it comes to pro sports, and should always be the main focus. [/quote]

I dunno. Have you read the in depth breakdown of how much the Nets owners made when they sold to Prokhorov, despite fielding that horrible series of teams that got worse over time?

I forget what site it was on, but I’ll look at it. Basically they bought the team solely so they could procure land for it in Brooklyn, then sold the team plus the land, made something crazy like 10:1 profit.

51

[quote]Aggv wrote:

[quote]gregron wrote:

[quote]Aggv wrote:
someone needs to tell stern that the league being successful is not 100% about dollars being made.
[/quote]

It is the Stern. He is running a billion dollar business. To us it’s a sport, a game and entertainment… To the NBA it is 100% a business and businesses are all about making as much money as possible. I don’t like it as much as the next guy but if I owned a team I would be trying to make as much money as possible.[/quote]

Buying a pro sports team with the idea that you’re going to make money on it is flawed logic imho. Not saying they need to be losing money, or breaking even, but the goal for ANY team ownership should be to WIN. If all they cared about was making money, there are much much better investments elsewhere outside of pro sports.

Winning will always yield the biggest return (profits) when it comes to pro sports, and should always be the main focus. [/quote]

Making as much money as possible and winning go hand in hand. If you’re not winning you’re not making as much money as you could.

Owners don’t get into the league because it’s the best investment option in the world but no one in their right mind would want to own a team if it wasnt going to benifit them financially.

At the end of the day it’s still a business.

52

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]strungoutboy21 wrote:

[quote]scj119 wrote:
I didn’t watch as much of the LAL series as I’d like (west conf games are on late here), but until a SINGLE non-Lakers fan says the calls were predominately in OKC’s favor, I’m not gonna believe it.

I generally don’t believe any argument when the only people in favor are fans of the team of question. You’ll be right more often than not. Especially because WF has at least mentioned the “tilted” officiating in literally every Lakers game that he’s watched and discussed in this thread. (Not saying he blames losses on them, but there is always SOME mention of skewed officiating somewhere in each post) [/quote]
Of course they were going to say the calls were bullshit because they are Lakers fans. What were the Lakers fans saying in 2002 in game six against the Kings?[/quote]

Going back and watching the games in light of what Donoghay[sp?] has said I FIRMLY believe the refs influenced those games, just like I believe the refs influence games ALL OF THE TIME. This game is about money, and the commish is a shrewd business man. Dynasties make money, and he’s manufactured a few. I’d also like to point out that OKC won this series due to the Lakers lack of heart, not ref favoritism. But, the refs most certainly played a large part.[/quote]

Maybe, but I am really skeptical of Donaghy’s claims. A Noted liar (point 1) who has a lot to gain by snitching out people in terms of reduced allegations when dealing with prosecuters (point 2) and a lot of money to gain by writing a scandalous “tell-all” book (point 3), I don’t see why he would be trusted more than anyone else. He deliberately duped the NBA and fans to make money - and we believe he wouldn’t lie about what exactly happened just to make money on a book? Why are we presuming truth?

There was an extensive series on TrueHoop (ESPN blog) where they looked up a lot of his claims with facts and were proven to be completely bogus. First of all, he claimed to win 90% of his bets which we know wasn’t true because he was in debt to pretty much everyone and absolutely no casino would take bets from anyone who’s winning 90% of the time (they keep track of these things, and you run out of runners). Secondly, a lot his “distinct memories” were easily discredited simply by looking up box scores and game tapes. Thirdly, a lot of what he said about specific refs and their tendencies to call games was also proven wrong based on looking at historical calls in games that those guys reffed. Fourthly, you can look up game spreads from history (forget the site, spreadapedia maybe?) and a lot of the wins/losses/line swings he recounted in detail were blatantly off.

All of this is to say that I think Donaghy acted alone (or at least mostly alone) and is trying to implicate others so he can A) make money and B) spread the blame.

Furthermore, Stern is no spring chicken, I have to think the league would benefit a lot more (financially) in his remaining tenure to have the Lakers and their giant fan base continue to get to the finals and drive ratings. He doesn’t need to be thinking about 5-10yrs from now. If your theory is right we will see a lot of favoritism in the OKC-SAS series as well, since that’s another “old guard” vs. “young gun” matchup, with the added caveat that SAS has a much smaller fan base and interest level (because of their “boring” play style) than LAL. Theoretically Stern should have even more reason to see OKC to the finals.

Also, to be honest, I don’t know how you can watch or be interested in a league that you believe is somewhat fixed. I just don’t.

53

[quote]scj119 wrote:
I dunno. Have you read the in depth breakdown of how much the Nets owners made when they sold to Prokhorov, despite fielding that horrible series of teams that got worse over time?

I forget what site it was on, but I’ll look at it. Basically they bought the team solely so they could procure land for it in Brooklyn, then sold the team plus the land, made something crazy like 10:1 profit.[/quote]

That’s like the group that bought the Dodgers. The Dodgers were projected to sell for $1.2-1.4 Billion but actually sold for $2.2 Billion (I believe)

Alot of people thought that the group overpaid for the franchise… But then the announcement came put that their TV rights are going to be up for sale next year and are projected to cost Fox Sports (or whoever gets it) over $6 Billion!!! The owner group will have almost tripled their investment in less than a year.

Sports are big money (especially with sponsorships and TV/Radio rights)

54

[quote]gregron wrote:

[quote]Aggv wrote:

[quote]gregron wrote:

[quote]Aggv wrote:
someone needs to tell stern that the league being successful is not 100% about dollars being made.
[/quote]

It is the Stern. He is running a billion dollar business. To us it’s a sport, a game and entertainment… To the NBA it is 100% a business and businesses are all about making as much money as possible. I don’t like it as much as the next guy but if I owned a team I would be trying to make as much money as possible.[/quote]

Buying a pro sports team with the idea that you’re going to make money on it is flawed logic imho. Not saying they need to be losing money, or breaking even, but the goal for ANY team ownership should be to WIN. If all they cared about was making money, there are much much better investments elsewhere outside of pro sports.

Winning will always yield the biggest return (profits) when it comes to pro sports, and should always be the main focus. [/quote]

Making as much money as possible and winning go hand in hand. If you’re not winning you’re not making as much money as you could.

Owners don’t get into the league because it’s the best investment option in the world but no one in their right mind would want to own a team if it wasnt going to benifit them financially.

At the end of the day it’s still a business.[/quote]

Unless you buy land in Brooklyn, buy a New Jersey team, move them to your Brooklyn land, sell the land plus team as a package, and make 10 dollars per dollar you spent despite the team going from Finals Contenders to bottom-feeders during that time.

55

I think MOST teams are luxury purchases - you buy a sports team because you are rich as hell and want to own a sports team.

As always though, there are exceptions. My example above, the Marlins who were purposely pocketing revenue sharing money in baseball and not spending it on salaries (got reprimanded by MLB for hoarding cash and not being competitive, so they signed a some players to lucrative extensions and brought in Reyes for $100M).

Also, lots of teams operate at a yearly loss but sell for way more than they were purchased for - making yearly budgets kind of irrelevant from a “total profit” standpoint. They appreciate in value pretty quickly despite operating at losses (at least they have over the last generation).

56

[quote]therajraj wrote:
There was definitely some favourable calls for OKC, but I think it’s being played up as a bigger factor than it actually was.

It wasn’t extremely lopsided.[/quote]

Actually it was, and I’ll tell you how:

Setting aside all the flopping bullcrap, the refs consistently allowed OKC to foul by design.

What I mean is on every 2nd half possession, Sefalosha was fouling Bryant. Off-ball holding, blatant on-ball hand checking, and reaching and hacking the whole way. Now, he was doing this on purpose simply BECAUSE HE WAS OUT THERE TO COLLECT FOULS. He would not have complained about the whistles, he would’ve simply continued doing that until he was subbed out… unless the refs never whistled his violations in the first place.

Similarly, Perkins and Nazr were somehow repeatedly allowed that “two-hand shove” style of post defense. Again, these guys are OUT THERE TO COLLECT FOULS and fully expect the refs to whistle those obvious violations. And yet, throughout the series, nothing. It’s like Bynum decides to settle for shitty post position against only OKC, but no other teams. Right…

All that said, I applaud OKC for using that strategy to great effect. They knew it would be dragout, halfcourt series with LAL and adjusted appropriately. It was up to the refs to “clean up” all the handcheck/two-hand-shove nonsense, but when they don’t, it becomes an effective strategy.

And show this current LAL squad just a glimmer of failure and they’ll fold, we know that. So credit to OKC, no question, but let’s not act like this series was even decently officiated.

57

[quote]Aggv wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
They’re like the old dudes at the Y that have been playing together forever and run the courts against kids 1/2 their age and twice as athletic.[/quote]

That’s really not that far off.

it should be a good series, and really should be the finals match up. [/quote]

Agreed, great analogy. SA plays the “right” way for a 5-on-5 team game. (meanwhile, I see Bryant going for 42pts and 0 assists and realize he had no intention of actually winning yesterday)

Great series on tap, and agreed that the winner is the likely champ. (which makes me kinda want to see BOS make it out of the east and promptly get spanked in the Finals)

58

[quote]chillain wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:
There was definitely some favourable calls for OKC, but I think it’s being played up as a bigger factor than it actually was.

It wasn’t extremely lopsided.[/quote]

Actually it was, and I’ll tell you how:

Setting aside all the flopping bullcrap, the refs consistently allowed OKC to foul by design.

What I mean is on every 2nd half possession, Sefalosha was fouling Bryant. Off-ball holding, blatant on-ball hand checking, and reaching and hacking the whole way. Now, he was doing this on purpose simply BECAUSE HE WAS OUT THERE TO COLLECT FOULS. He would not have complained about the whistles, he would’ve simply continued doing that until he was subbed out… unless the refs never whistled his violations in the first place.

Similarly, Perkins and Nazr were somehow repeatedly allowed that “two-hand shove” style of post defense. Again, these guys are OUT THERE TO COLLECT FOULS and fully expect the refs to whistle those obvious violations. And yet, throughout the series, nothing. It’s like Bynum decides to settle for shitty post position against only OKC, but no other teams. Right…

All that said, I applaud OKC for using that strategy to great effect. They knew it would be dragout, halfcourt series with LAL and adjusted appropriately. It was up to the refs to “clean up” all the handcheck/two-hand-shove nonsense, but when they don’t, it becomes an effective strategy.

And show this current LAL squad just a glimmer of failure and they’ll fold, we know that. So credit to OKC, no question, but let’s not act like this series was even decently officiated.

[/quote]

Hrmm… didn’t pick up on that. I’m going try and check out an NBA TV game replay.

59

I have to say I don’t really like discussing bias officiating in general. Not that I’m trying to dictate our conversations in this thread, but honestly this is one of the few instances in life where I’d rather be blissfully ignorant.

I mean if you’re under the impression officiating is shaped by Stern’s preferences, how can you even watch? It must feel like WWE.

Anyways just my $0.02, carry on.

60

[quote]chillain wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:
There was definitely some favourable calls for OKC, but I think it’s being played up as a bigger factor than it actually was.

It wasn’t extremely lopsided.[/quote]

Actually it was, and I’ll tell you how:

Setting aside all the flopping bullcrap, the refs consistently allowed OKC to foul by design.

What I mean is on every 2nd half possession, Sefalosha was fouling Bryant. Off-ball holding, blatant on-ball hand checking, and reaching and hacking the whole way. [/quote]

this is a honest question here not trying to be sarcastic or anything but was metta not doing the same if not worse to durant pretty much every possession?